Speakers

Aaron Knight is responsible for internal web portals, course registration, grading and institutional reporting for the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Information Systems group. Basically, if you wouldn’t notice something until it’s suddenly not working and it’s required for the college to function, he’s probably responsible for it. He spends a lot of time figuring out the quirks of mapping systems and other peculiarities of the Googleverse so you don’t have to.

Amanda Chestnut’s artwork focuses on the representation of history – and in particular, how the history of race and gender impacts modern narratives. Her art has been exhibited in Rochester at Firehouse Gallery, Joe Brown Gallery, University of Rochester, and High Falls Art Gallery at the Center at High Falls. She was formerly a resident at the Center for Photography at Woodstock in Woodstock, NY and at Genesee Center for the Arts & Education in Rochester, NY. She has held graduate assistantships at Visual Studies Workshop and the Criminal Justice Department, both at the College at Brockport in Rochester. Chestnut holds an MFA graduate of Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY. She is currently the Communications Coordinator for the Flower City Arts Center in Rochester, NY.

Amanda Costello is the lead content strategist in the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), where she works with college administrators, directors, and department-level content strategists to guide comprehensive strategy.

Amanda is an award-winning speaker on working with content specialists and the web, building web teams, and sharing ideas to do good work. She enjoys filling out forms because it feels like taking a test where she knows all the answers.

Presenting

Amy Deschenes is the Senior Library UX Consultant for Harvard Library. She conducts systematic user research on the library’s in-person and online experiences. In 2015 she established the User Research Center at Harvard Library, a usability and digital accessibility testing lab that provides services and resources to the entire University community. She also conducts regular training workshops with staff on how to integrate UX practices in their work.

Anne Gibson is an information architect and general troublemaker working for Dell Boomi as a Principal UX Designer. She lives close enough to Valley Forge to think a run in a revolutionary battlefield is normal. In her personal life, Anne’s been surrounded by people with disabilities for at least 20 years, and she’s been studying and advocating for accessibility in design since 2014.

Ashley Brewer is the web librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries and has worked in web technology and user experience in libraries and higher education for 5+ years. She received her MLIS from the University of Washington, which sparked her passion for user experience, information architecture, and human-centered systems design. Research and day-to-day interests include how to promote and account for diverse perspectives in web and systems design, and how to foster openness, inclusion, and humanity in technology.

Baratunde Thurston is a futurist comedian, writer, and cultural critic who co-founded Cultivated Wit and the About Race podcast, and wrote the New York Times bestseller How To Be Black. Baratunde was a political blogger for four years, ran digital strategy for The Onion for five years, was named one of the 100 most influential African Americans by The Root, and has been part of noteworthy institutions such as Fast Company, TED, the MIT Media Lab, and the gentrification of Brooklyn, New York.

In 2012, he co-founded Cultivated Wit, a comedic digital company on a quest to merge comedy and technology into a new genre of creative expression, with Brian Janosch and Craig Cannon. The company produces Comedy Hack Day during which developers and comedians collaborate to make intentionally funny tech projects that humanize technology while offering social commentary on the world at large.

When he’s not staring at glowing rectangles, Mr. Thurston, which he goes by toward the end of his bio, cooks, does yoga, and punches bags designed for that purpose. Mr. Thurston has traveled heavily within and beyond the United States and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Presenting

Brian Rimel is a search information architect and UX consultant, civic hacking advocate, and Charlottesville native. He has spent the last ten years working with companies ranging from startups to international corporations, with a focus on government and education sectors. He specializes in building intuitive search interfaces and translating business objectives into actionable, metrics-driven results.

I’m the Product Designer at VividCortex, where I help build new products and improve user experience around our tools that bring more visibility to database performance. I have worked previously as a Software Developer at the Center for Open Science, a small non-profit software company building open source tools for researchers. I have a PhD in Instructional Technology from UVA where I studied instructional design, online educational environments and advanced user analytics methods.

Carolyn is a web designer and developer with a passion for learning. She began her career as a chemist, transitioned to being a full time mom of five, and now enjoys building Drupal websites for the University of Virginia in the ITS-CACS group.

Chad Haefele is the Head of User Experience and Assessment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries. His department explores evaluation and improvement of the campus libraries’ web presence and other points of interaction with users.

Chad’s infrequently updated blog is at HiddenPeanuts.com, he’s on twitter @HiddenPeanuts, and his book WordPress for Libraries is available from Rowman & Littlefield.

Chris Love is a front-end developer for people and companies who are lost in the sea of modern web and user experience standards. He has a quarter century of web development experience, and has built a wide variety of web sites and applications in those years.

He applies these interests at his small web consulting company, Love2Dev, that focuses on progressive web applications and modern web technology. Love2Dev offers web development and analysis to help companies engage end users and operate more efficiently.

Chris is a ten time Microsoft MVP in ASP.NET and Web Platform as well as the author of High Performance Single Page Web Applications, two other web development books, and the Udemy course “Progressive Web Apps – From Beginner to Expert”. He is currently authoring a new progressive web app book for Packt, due out this fall.

Through his blog, speaking and books, he’s here to help you shake up your approach to web development while making it all feel like fun. His insights and opinions have been featured in various magazines, popular podcasts web sites. He has helped hundreds of businesses and individuals, ranging from mom and pop shops through major corporate brands, to build modern web experiences.

Christine Tobias is the Head of User Experience at the Michigan State University Libraries, managing projects to evaluate and continually enhance the Libraries’ spaces and services for the MSU community. She has presented at local and national conferences on library assessment and user experience, and has published on virtual reference and distance library services. In her spare time, Christine manages her micro-scale herb farm, collects gardening books, and enjoys hiking and camping.

Claire Payne is a graduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she will complete an MS in Information Science and an MA in Art History in May 2019. She works at UNC Libraries as the Content Management RA in the User Experience and Assessment department and is interested in accessibility, equity, UX, and art libraries.

With over a decade of customer and user experience strategy under his belt, Dan Cotting is Shockoe’s Director of Immersive Technology and resident “future-tech-crazy-person.” Dan fully believes that virtual and augmented reality will pave the way for an entirely new approach to business operations: improving the lives of both employees and consumers, while simultaneously increasing business efficiency and productivity. When he isn’t dreaming about this “Ready Player One” future, Dan spends his free time playing bass guitar, practicing 18th century photographic techniques, brewing beer, and enjoying time with his wife Kelly and their five rescue pets. He holds a B.S. from Boston University and an M.S. from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Edward Luca is a library practitioner, researcher, and MBA student. He currently works at the University of Sydney library. Previously he worked at the University of Technology Sydney. Edward writes and speaks on topics including UX, information literacy, and scholarly communication.

Emily Patterson is the founder of Bee Measure, an agency that helps nonprofits use data to create more effective websites and digital marketing campaigns. She started the company in 2016 by drawing on her experience at Public Broadcasting Service and Better Business Bureau. Emily believes that data can help organizations of all sizes work smarter and do more with limited budgets. When she’s not getting nerdy at work, Emily enjoys the outdoors, reading and sampling Charlottesville’s many breweries. Emily is also a PMI-certified Project Management Professional.

Erin White leads the Digital Engagement department at Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries, directing the strategy for web infrastructure, digitization, digital collections, and digital scholarship. Erin is deeply interested in the intersections of social justice and the digital world. Erin has written and presented about library IT management, user experience, critical digital scholarship, and diversity and inclusion in libraries, and was previously a presenter at edUi and a member of the edUi planning and program teams.

Garrett Bingaman was the Senior Multimedia/UX Designer at Purdue University before stepping into his current role as Visual UX Designer at Huntington Bank. Passionate about not only great design but an exceptional user experience, Garrett has learned the importance of understanding your audience goals and being a flexible, well-rounded designer.

As an avid coffee drinker and vegetarian, Garrett loves exploring new cities and local coffee shops and finding creative spaces to design in. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design, a minor in photography and two UX certifications.

Maker of things and fixer of problems, Developer/Designer Jenny Slaughter made her first website in sixth grade. She started freelancing in high school, and by college she was building her own CMS (though she didn’t say whether that ended up being a good idea). Slaughter studied web design at Radford University, where she designed, developed, and directed the student-run online magazine. And before she came to NewCity, she worked as the sole web designer/developer at Ferrum College during a site redesign and implementation. For us, she puts that same crazy-awesome drive to good use taking ideas and making them go. Tell her something is impossible, or difficult, or maybe even just questionable, and she will find a way to do it — better. She’s conquered custom JavaScript pieces, flexible filters, complex polygon and parallax templates, and other things that started out with “Hey, I wonder if…?”

Hailing from Erin’s green shores, Jeremy maintains his link to Irish traditional music running the community site The Session. He also indulges a darker side of his bouzouki-playing in the band Salter Cane.

Jeremy spends most of his time goofing off on the internet, documenting his time-wasting on adactio.com, where he has been writing for over fifteen years.

Jill is the Director of User Experience at University of Virginia Library where she manages a team of web developers and user researchers to nurture positive user relationships in both physical and virtual environments. She has been an invited speaker and author on the topic of library marketing, earning recognition as a Library Journal Mover & Shaker and recently publishing a book entitled, Library Marketing: From Passion to Practice. Jill holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from The Ohio State University, a Master of Science in Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Certificate in Marketing from Virginia Commonwealth University.

Jimmy Chandler is a UX designer and researcher who collaborates with enterprises, startups, and non-profits to create better digital experiences and rethink their UX processes. He developed the UX/UI curriculum for New York Code + Design Academy, where he is also an instructor.

Jimmy lives in Brooklyn, NY, and is a frequent mentor, speaker, and organizer for events and organizations such as Startup Weekend, UX Camp, IXDA, and UXPA.

Presenting

As the co-founder of tSunela, JoAnna Dettmann has paved the way to search engine marketing success for clients such as St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Trane, Logan Chiropractic, Energizer, Ameren UE, and Fontbonne University. With more than 15 years of Internet marketing and sales experience, Dettmann is proficient in all aspects of the digital marketing industry including email marketing, Internet marketing sales, social media marketing, and online media planning and buying. Dettmann is involved in the Gateway Interactive Marketing Association (GIMA). Prior to co-founding tSunela, Dettmann worked at Rodgers Townsend, St. Louis Blues, and Brighton Digital Marketing. She has a bachelor’s degree in Communications with a minor in Marketing from Missouri Baptist University.

As a senior UX designer for LiquidHub, I craft excellent user experiences, using content strategy, information architecture, interaction design, & user research. I help folks effectively integrate UX into product development. I concentrate on “UX for the rest of us,” focusing on helping people succeed in day-to-day experiences.

My previous work included engagements with Allianz Global Assistance, the Library of Congress, Best Buy, & the CDC, among others. I also actively engage with the UX community through writing & global speaking engagements.

John is a storyteller with design and development skills. By day he designs and builds websites and mobile apps; by night he spins sci-fi stories at StoryLab and counts his words carefully at http://8wordstories.com. He has a wife, five kids, six cats, four dogs, and a small army of fish. If he remembers to wear pants, it’s been a good day.

Ask him questions, compliment his tastes in thirteenth century Greenlandic literature, and argue with him over minutia (like whether Greenland had any independent literature in the thirteenth century) on twitter (@storykaboom).

As the Innovative Technologies Coordinator for Learning Environments at Virginia Tech’s University Libraries, Dr. Jonathan Bradley has built multiple spaces and services using emerging technologies, including VR/AR, 3D printing, IoT, and he offers technology workshops for both university faculty and students. He currently manages the Virtual Environments Studio, a Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality space, and has partnered with the local public school system on a grant to build similar spaces in middle schools.

Josh is the department head of User Experience at North Carolina State University Libraries. He received a Masters in Library Science from the University of North Carolina in 1999 and immediately began working at NC State. His first position there was Reference Librarian for Distance Learning, which was about helping people and improving the website. Years later, that came be to be called UX. Before library school Josh worked as a newspaper reporter.

Justin is a Senior Full-Stack Engineer at Braid. He artfully transforms complex applications into delightfully straightforward products and consistently raises the bar on everything Braid produces by inspiring his colleagues to strive for the highest quality.

Justin is an authority in his field and stands out not just for his technical brilliance, but also for his business acumen. He often speaks at developer conferences and meetups where he carefully distills complex topics into intelligible arguments that are not only informative but also engaging.

Katrina Wehr is an instructional designer at Penn State University. Increasing access to learning opportunities for all students inspires her work. In addition to OER implementation, she is interested in educational data privacy, online community building, and incorporating real-life experiences in the physical world into online learning experiences.

An early study of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), tSunela co-founder Kaysha Hanock continues to be at the forefront of search engine marketing. With 15 years of industry experience, Hanock has helped clients such as St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Fontbonne University, Praxair, Scottrade, and Aventis Pharmaceuticals enhance their online visibility. Hanock’s expertise is in search engine optimization, social media marketing, link building practices, and web analytics. Hanock is a member of the National Association of Professional Women (NAPW), the search engine marketing professionals’ organization (SEMPO), and the Portland-based search engine marketing group, SEMpdx. She is also a Google AdWords certified professional. Prior to co-founding tSunela, Hanock worked at Outrider, The Selling Source, and Brighton Digital Marketing. She has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Truman State University and an MBA with a services marketing specialty from the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

Kelly Sattler is the Head of Web Services at Michigan State University Libraries. She leads her team in constantly improving patron and librarians’ experiences with using the Libraries’ website. She’s also on the Web Governance Board at MSU and is the Web Coordinating Committee Chair for the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) until ALA Annual 2018. She’s a tea drinker, cat lover, and quilter.

Kevin Pittman is the senior web developer for the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech. He has been doing web design and development since 1994 and currently specializes in Drupal and custom PHP web application development along with accessibility compliance.

In his spare time, Kevin is a professional puppeteer of over fourteen years and is often seen with his sidekick character, Poe “Awesome” Possum.

Kim Vassiliadis is the Manager of Digital Services & User Experience at The University of North Carolina’s Campus IT division. Digital Services is responsible for the management and maintenance of Carolina’s 16,000+ WordPress sites. Kim works with departments and schools from across campus and helps them design or redesign their websites. While no two websites are alike, all clients want to produce usable websites that communicate useful information. Kim helps determine what that means for each client.

Luan is Co-founder & Software Engineer at Braid, which undersells the breadth of work he does. When not programming, Luan is strategizing, operating, selling, recruiting, and applying out-of-the-box thinking to grow the business and provide more value to Braid’s customers.

Madeline received her MLS and MIS from Indiana University. Before she became a UX architect, she worked as an information architect, archivist, librarian, editor, art cataloguer, English teacher, and farmer.

Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures—a #1 New York Times bestseller and inspiration for the #1 movie in America—is the true story of the black women mathematicians at NASA who helped fuel some of America’s greatest achievements in space. In talks, Shetterly celebrates these unsung heroes, teasing out issues of race, gender, science, and innovation against the backdrop of WWII and the Civil Rights Era.

Shetterly is also the founder of the Human Computer Project, a digital archive of the stories of NASA’s African-American “Human Computers” whose work tipped the balance in favor of the United States in WWII, the Cold War, and the Space Race. Shetterly’s father was among the early generation of black NASA engineers and scientists, and she had direct access to NASA executives and the women featured in the book. She grew up around the historically black Hampton University, where some of the women in Hidden Figures studied. Along with Aran Shetterly, Shetterly co-founded the magazine Inside Mexico. She graduated from The University of Virginia, is a 2014 Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, and recently joined the Terra Alpha Investments advisory board.

Mason Brown is an experience designer at Shockoe. Whether it’s designing applications for musicians, credit union members, or enterprise employees, Mason is passionate about creating quality tools that provide significant improvement to whatever task is at hand. With years of experience in systems and product design, Mason works with clients to identify business problems, understand the needs of the user and craft products that benefit both. You can find him on the James river from 5a.m. to 8a.m. nearly every morning coaching collegiate, high school and para rowers while continuing his quest to see every single James River otter.

Matt Clark is a software engineering consultant specializing in web application development and cloud infrastructure management. He has worked in the Charlottesville area for over seven years architecting solutions for local businesses and national governmental agencies in the civil sector.

NewCity Analytics Specialist Matt Gaskey came to digital analytics in the most usual way. After studying Philosophy at UNC-Charlotte, pursuing a career in cooking, rediscovering foreign languages, teaching and studying Linguistics at Université de Lille 3 in France, and moving to Romania, the choice was obvious. With a knack for problem solving, he has expanded his jack-of-all-tradesmanship into the world of technology. He loves digging into data and discovering the most efficient ways possible to organize information. Gaskey is always up for a challenge, whether it’s measuring or reporting, extracting or tagging, or simply strategizing about the best course of action. He’ll put his knowledge of modern digital analytics tools, web browsers, APIs and JavaScript to use to get the job done, and get it done right.

Matt Leahy is Lead Web/UX Designer at EAB Enrollment Services, which helps colleges and universities across the country connect with prospective students through comprehensive, multi-channel marketing. Matt currently manages the web design team for EAB’s Adult Learner Recruitment division. In that role, he designs and develops responsive, accessible landing pages, applications and other experiences.

Matt is a proud unicorn. He will gladly design, code, wireframe, strategize, write, and do basically anything else he can get his hands on.

If he’s not pushing pixels or crunching code, you can find Matt at home with his wife, precocious four-year-old daughter, and two furry friends.

Megan is an online marketing specialist at UVA Health System. In this role, she serves as the editor of Healthy Balance, the Health System’s consumer-facing blog, and does strategy and content for the Health System’s social media accounts. She’s also a member of the Central Virginia chapter of the American Marketing Association. Megan is a graduate of Virginia Tech and dabbled in newspapers before coming to work at UVA 11 years ago.

Melanie serves as the Senior Content Strategist at WillowTree. Prior to her current role, Melanie managed content at tech companies including Rackspace and cPanel, and worked on content strategies for Fortune 500 clients at Razorfish. A frequent speaker on content-related topics, Melanie has taught content strategy both at General Assembly and online.

Michael Collins is an assistant professor in the School of Visual Arts at Penn State University where he teaches new media studio art and digital design. Collins has been creating online learning technology for over a decade and is an advocate for open-source technology. His current research interests center around free access to teaching knowledge and home-grown learning technology. His most recent collaboration is called OER Schema – a project helping to make open education resources (OER) more interoperable. In his words, “this project is an exhilarating ontological romp through pedagogical metadata.” Collins has produced a wide breadth of creative work including new media exhibitions, furniture, web interfaces, drawings, product concepts, animations. His most recent exhibition work centers around digital privacy, identity, and security. He is the lead faculty coordinator for the multi-college World Campus Digital Multimedia Design program and enjoys teaching design to students that work across subjects.

Michael Szul has spent almost two decades in software engineering in industries as diverse as insurance, energy, travel, and higher education. He has worked in both application and product development, as well as framework creation, code generation, API building, and machine learning. Szul is the co-host of the Codepunk podcast – a podcast about programming, technology, and the digital lifestyle, which has encompassed such topics as data visualization, artificial intelligence, JavaScript/TypeScript, and .NET programming. In addition, he records programming tutorials on YouTube with the first series about building chatbots with Microsoft’s Bot Framework and natural language processing tools. Szul is also a Microsoft MVP for Visual Studio and Development Technologies. He currently works for the University of Virginia School of Medicine as their principal software engineer.

Nikki Massaro Kauffman is a unique combination of front-end developer, multimedia specialist, and educator. Using web technology to give learners of all backgrounds access to education is more than a job to her; it is her calling. She has degrees in both computer science and in education and has been working in these fields since 1998.

Content Strategist Rachel DeLauder is NewCity’s resident wordsmith, who’s fascinated by the process of designing complex information systems, and can spend hours agonizing over just the right term for a component in a CMS or a label in a navigation menu. A word nerd at heart, she swoons over perfectly crafted copy and looks at communication challenges as an opportunity to make the world a more logical, legible place. She specializes in taking piles of dusty, disorganized content and churning out laser-cut messages that serve a distinct purpose. She holds a BA in English and an MA in communication from Virginia Tech.

Rebecca Blakiston has been a librarian at the University of Arizona Libraries since 2008, and a user experience librarian since 2014. She specializes in user research, user-centered design, writing for the web, and content strategy. In 2016, she was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker. In 2017, she published her second book, Writing Effectively in Print and On the Web: A Practical Guide for Librarians. In 2018, she became editor-in-chief of Weave: Journal of Library User Experience. She has presented extensively on user research methods, website content strategy, and writing for the user experience.

Sarah Arnold is the Content Strategy Librarian with the User Experience and Assessment Department at UNC Chapel Hill Libraries. In this role, she works with content owners to improve the Library’s website, research guides, and other online tools for all users. She holds a MSLS from UNC Chapel Hill.

Shannon is a content strategist and designer at Capital One. In her past lives, she worked as a web copywriter, SEO specialist, and instructional designer. She’s worn different hats over the years, but one thing has remained constant: her mission to create and deliver crisp, straightforward content that helps people get stuff done.

Shannon runs RVA Content Strategy, a networking group that hosts content strategy workshops in and around Richmond, Virginia.

When she’s not exclaiming about microcopy, you can find Shannon snuggling her dogs, having movie night with her family, or finding the perfect gif to drop into a DM on Slack.

Shayna Diamond is currently a Full Stack WordPress Developer at Scitent building eLearning solutions. She is passionate about web accessibility and semantic coding. Shayna is an active member of the local and international WordPress community, contributing to the support forums, attending and speaking at local and national WordPress Meet-ups and WordCamps. Additionally, she is a Chapter Leader for GirlDevelopIt of Central Virginia, where she takes great pride in helping other women find their footing in web development.

Sravanthi Garikipati comes from an engineering background with a Master’s degree in Computer Science majoring in Human-Computer Interaction. She is currently working as a web developer for the ITS Custom Applications & Consulting group at the University of Virginia

She loves creating beautiful digital experiences across multiple platforms and is passionate about design, music, and technology. Outside of work, Sravanthi likes to compose and teach Indian classical music. She also serves as the artist coordinator with [email protected]

Susanna Klein is the assistant professor of violin and coordinator of strings at her alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University. She has 15 years of professional orchestral performing experience and currently enjoys focusing on chamber music performance with her trailblazer group ACE.

Klein served as principal second violin of the Richmond Symphony for five years. Previous orchestral appointments have been with the Colorado, Memphis, Vermont, and Rhode Island Symphony Orchestras. She has been a member of two string quartets: Artist-in-Residence with the Oberon String Quartet at St. Catherines School in Richmond, Va. and violist with the Seneca String Quartet in Boston, MA.

Professor Klein is an active researcher, writer, and pedagogue. She has recently launched the YouTube Channel Practice Blitz, dedicated to efficient practice routines for string players.

As Website Project & Systems Manager for the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, Valerie Harness works with multiple stakeholders across Grounds to ensure the best user experience across Darden’s multiple websites, portals and digital marketing efforts. She trains web editors, troubleshoots, gathers metrics and is ever in the bold pursuit of site improvement.

Valerie enjoys serving as a small business consult, working with nonprofit organizations, retail shops, and educational groups to improve their digital presence and goal measurement from tip to tail.

Vera Rhoads brings strong expertise in cognitive behavioral research to enhance user experience. She has been working on improving usability and optimizing web solutions for large-scale Fortune 500 companies, international finance organizations and non-profits (Fannie Mae, AARP, IMF) for 20 years.

Vera is CUA and CXA certified, PMP, PMI-PBA, PMI-ACP, ITIL and SCRUM master certified and works on enhancing process methodologies into the web development lifecycle. She has won many significant design awards in her career, including Nielsen Norman Top 10 Intranets.

Whitney combines a fascination with people and an obsession to communicate clearly with her goal of bringing user research insights to designing products where people matter. She’s written 3 books on the subject – A Web for Everyone, Storytelling for User Experience, and Global UX: Design and research in a connected world – to help practitioners keep users in mind throughout the creative process.

Her UX work includes projects at the Open University in the UK, National Cancer Institute, Amtrak, and IEEE.

She’s also passionate about civic design. As the co-director of the Center for Civic Design, Whitney works to improve the voter experience and make it easier for more people to participate in elections.

Before she was seduced by a little beige computer into software, usability, and interface design, Whitney was a theatrical lighting designer on and off Broadway, learning about storytelling from some of the masters. Follow Whitney’s practical UX advice anytime on Twitter @whitneyq

Zack Bryant serves as creative director at Journey Group, an independent design agency in Charlottesville, Virginia focused on editorial design and storytelling for the most significant clients in the nonprofit sector. Their award-winning work with the University of Virginia, World Vision and the U.S. Postal Service pushes the boundaries of narrative design to grow catalog, loyalty, donor and alumni programs for enduring relevance.

In leading Journey Group’s digital studio, Zack’s particular focus on service design and information architecture pushes his team to imagine and create a wide-range of next generation web applications and content delivery systems that serve producers and editors as well as readers and subscribers. Having started out in the world of advertising, he takes pride in defining the right performance metrics and building systems that scale for partners doing work that matters.